1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a broadcasting system and more particularly to a multimedia recorder with recorded program management functions based on EPG data, a TV receiver provided with such a recorder, and a system for supporting such functions in a broadcasting equipment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, in digital broadcasting systems, at least one broadcasting station broadcasts a transport stream (TS) defined in MPEG-2 (Moving Picture Experts Group II) standard. The transport stream (or a physical channel) includes a plurality of (logical) channels in a time-division-multiplexed form. Each logical channel includes many programs. Each program comprises at least one video subchannel, at least one audio subchannel and/or at least one data subchannel. Program specific information (PSI) and service information (SI) on each program are frequently inserted in the TS.
Such digital broadcasting systems usually provide far many channels as compared with analog broadcasting systems and accordingly an enormous number of programs. This makes channel or program selection difficult. In order to facilitate program selection, information on programs is transmitted as EPG (Electronic Program Guide) enabling the subscribers to select a program to watch and to program a VCR (video cassette recorder) to record a desired program by displaying a program schedule and selecting the desired program through a remote controller.
If one of the recorded programs is to be played in conventional video recorder such as a VCR, then the user often takes a lot of time to find a desired one of recorded programs recorded on recording medium. The user may even forget the programs he or she recorded in a recording medium. In this case, the user has to search the recording media to see what programs are recorded on the recording media if he or she has not made notes at the recording times.